Press Release

Parents can help kids find the truth behind tobacco and alcohol ads

By Megan Woltring

America’s youth are overwhelmed with mass media messages through numerous media outlets including movies, television, the internet, convenient stores, billboards, sporting events, radio, newspapers and magazines. In 1990 $100 million was spent on advertising to children in America, by 2000 that figure had increased to $2 billion.

Not lost to the benefits of marketing to youth, the tobacco companies have focused marketing efforts on teens for decades. As a 1981 Philip Morris document said, "Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while in their teens."

Although the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement states that tobacco companies can not use cartoon images in ads, billboards for ads, or distribute tobacco merchandise to minors, they have found other ways to market their products to teens through movies, the internet, magazines, convenient stores and tobacco gear.

The alcohol industry uses similar marketing strategies with fewer restrictions. The alcohol industry is primarily self-regulated regarding youth’s exposure to alcohol advertising. As a result, alcohol advertising appeared during all 15 of the top teen television shows in 2002. Alcohol marketing at the point of sale often includes low height alcohol ads that are in the sight line of children and adolescents as opposed to adults.

Similar to tobacco advertising, alcohol advertising connects alcohol use with attributes that are particularly important to youth such as friendship, prestige, sex appeal and fun. Alcohol advertising has introduced cartoon and animal characters; recent commercials have used frogs, lizards and dogs.

Research clearly indicates that along with parents and peers, alcohol advertising and marketing play a role in shaping young people’s attitudes toward alcohol, their intentions to drink and underage drinking behavior. A national study, published by The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in 2006, concluded that greater exposure to alcohol advertising contributes to an increase in drinking among underage youth. For each additional alcohol ad a young person saw, above the monthly average of 23, he or she drank 1% more.

How can we protect our youth from the powerful advertising of the alcohol and tobacco industry? One step is to create media literate children. Media literacy helps people view media messaging with a critical eye by evaluating the source, the intended purpose, the persuasion techniques and deeper meanings of the messages.

Parents can help their children become media literate by working on critical thinking skills. To begin teaching critical thinking skills, find a magazine ad or look at a TV commercial that you can rewind. Talk to your child about these questions: Who created this ad? What grabs your attention? What lifestyle are they selling you? Will buying the product really get you that lifestyle? What healthy or unhealthy messages are communicated? What part of the story is not being told?

By teaching your children to become media literate you can help them better understand and resist alcohol and tobacco advertising.

Megan Woltring is a Health Educator at Kittitas County Public Health. She and her husband moved to Ellensburg a year ago from Orange, NSW Australia where she worked as a Drug and Alcohol Prevention Officer.

The Kittitas County Community Network/Drug Free Communities Coalition and the Community Network agency, through a federal Drug Free Communities grant, are implementing the “Start Talking Before They Start Drinking” campaign as a community service for parents. For more information go to www.kccn-dfc.com.